New York City

Verve;
2008

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"I love how all the photographers leave just when you start sweating," Brazilian Girls singer Sabina Sciubba said at last weekend's Lollapalooza, watching the photo pit clear out as she wiped her brow in the glare of the midday sun. There's a metaphor in there, especially when your singer is as striking as Sciubba and your band as smooth as Brazilian Girls. With these guys, it's all too easy to get caught up in the surface, whether basking in the clubland grooves they produce or being struck by Sciubba herself, sexually aggressive yet supermodel aloof. But beneath that surface there's a lot of work going on to make such an eclectic soundscape so seamless, and if the strangeness of album number three, New York City, is too well thought out to sneak up on you, that's not for lack of effort. If anything, we've become so attuned to listening to acts stick unlikely stuff together that hiding the stitches is virtually impossible.

Yet it's still impressive the way "Strangeboy" morphs from downtempo lounge to full-on techno-dub breakdown, or how "Losing Myself" alludes to everything from catwalk fodder to New Order's "Confusion". "Ricardo" captures the chaos of 21st century urban living by way of jazzy horns, a menacing bass throb, and manic interrupting voices. "I Want Out" borrows ingredients from Brazilian drum troops, industrial music, and Krzysztof Komeda's spooky soundtrack work for Roman Polanski. The single "Good Time" is bubblegum dance punk that, despite its title, jettisons the banal hedonism du jour in favor of something far more fun and inviting. The woozy and swooning "Mano De Dios" is My Bloody Valentine by way of Latin America.

Brazilian Girls have no problem making their mish-mash sound downright normal, which in a way it is. Sciubba sings in several languages, reflecting not just her background (she was born in Rome and grew up in Munich) but an increased familiarity with polyglot cacophony and culture clashes. Albums like New York City stress that in 2008, everything-- people, music, whatever-- is a hybrid of some kind. For the Brazilian Girls, its casual exoticism isn't just a point of honor, it's the only path that makes sense.